Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)

(Thanks to your generous donations of this past week, you have triggered a Saturday post! Enjoy! -ctan)

Of course I didn’t smash a mirror in rage. Instead I ragefucked Ziggy which made us both feel much better about life and everything, and cleared my head enough for me to listen to his explanations.

It was one of those explanations that started with “I should have told you about this sooner,” which I expected.

But everything he said after that wasn’t what I expected.

“I got involved with Janessa when I was still a client of Digger’s but I was getting ready to leave and I needed her help to get access to his books,” he said as we were lying in his bed afterward. “At first it was just flirting, you know? And as we got to know each other better, it became obvious she wanted to leave, that she was sick of Digger breaking promises and going backwards instead of forwards careerwise, and she was smart, you know? Is smart, I should say, but she was savvy enough to figure out Digger was cooking his books and to keep copies of the uncooked books.”

I had nearly forgotten about the whole thing with trying to get a look at Digger’s accounting. “Wait. Janessa kept copies of Digger’s books? The stuff you had Colin look at?”

“And Sarah’s mom, yeah. Where did you think I got them from?”

“I…” He had never hinted, so far as I could remember, at what it took to get them. “I thought you just guilt-tripped Digger into giving you access. Or that Sarah’s mom invoked her audit clause.”

Ziggy snorted. “Honesty is not Digger’s strong suit.”

“That is kind of rich coming from you,” I felt I had to point out.

He ignored what I said and continued on. “Barrett went through those books with a fine-toothed comb, too, but ultimately he didn’t need to threaten Digger with any of the discrepancies he found to get Sarah as a client.”

The fact Barrett might have egged Ziggy to get Digger’s books via whatever means wasn’t as important to me just then than the following: “He was screwing Sarah out of money?”

“Yes.”

I guess I was ever so slightly surprised to hear that: I’d thought somehow that Digger would exploit his clients but not actually outright steal from them. I guess I thought he’d bend the rules but not break them.

I guess I was wrong. “Okay, but when did things between you and Janessa get beyond flirtation?”

His cheek was against my chest when he said. “Well, you know how I am.”

I don’t know whether to say I sighed or that all the air was let out of my balloon. “I do. You fall in love with everything you fuck, including me.”

“That is NOT true,” he said vehemently, and I felt his nails dig into my arm in a way they hadn’t the night before when he’d been holding my wrist at the party. “I’m not in love with Janessa, and I never was. But I needed to let her down easy after getting into an affair with her, so I didn’t break it off right away. The last time I saw her was the ‘I can’t do this anymore’ conversation. So it’s a bit fishy that now is when she shows up with the claim she’s carrying my baby.”

“Okay, so you’re not in love with her, you just…fucked her to get her to give you what you wanted?”

He nudged me hard in the ribs. “Give Janessa some fucking credit. She wasn’t exactly seduced by my charms or starry-eyed over me. You’ve seen her atttitude about sexual harassment.”

“Okay so…she’s the one who wanted it, and you felt obliged to provide because she did you a favor?” An echo of that throb in my head started again, though it was much less severe than it had been at the party. Having him lying there with me did a lot to quell my feelings of anxiety, but it only went so far. “Any way I slice this I come up with something that sounds terrible.”

His palm was hot against my chest. “Stop trying to simplify it down to a one-liner, then.”

“You’re saying…what, then?”

“I’m saying it was complicated but now the only thing that matters is it’s over. I made that very clear the last time I saw her.”

“Last time you saw her…”

“Yeah.”

I suddenly remembered the woman’s voice who answered the phone when I’d called a Los Angeles number looking for her. And I guess I still felt raw and hurt and freaked enough about the whole thing to say the following idiotic thing: “Did you learn to kiss on the cheek from her?”

And then I started to cry. And I think he tried to say something to that, some kind of answer to my stupidly heartbreaking question, but I couldn’t even hear it.

We ended up staying there like that, in a ball of snot and tears, for I don’t know how long. For what it’s worth he cried just as much as me, but I couldn’t even tell you what he was crying about exactly because we couldn’t communicate beyond that.

Eventually the tears stopped, though. I always run out eventually. This time my ribs hurt.

“I’m…I’m really a mess,” I heard myself say, when words came back. My hands were shaking. This was the hotel where Crystal worked the bar. Maybe I could use a dose of her medicine and advice.

He handed me a tissue and held the box in his lap while I blew my nose noisily. I think maybe I scared him I was so emotional. “What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” Be someone else, was my uncharitable thought. Because asking Ziggy to stop having sex and relationships with people other than me seemed completely outside the realm of reality. “You already broke things off with her.”

“I did. And I’m telling you, I was very careful. That baby can’t be mine. Unless she really did something sneaky like poke holes in a condom or something.”

“You’re sure? This wasn’t just you took her word for it that she was on the Pill? You didn’t mess around with…” I couldn’t even say the words unprotected sex.

“I swear.” He took the used tissue away and held my hands in his. “I’m very very very serious about this, Daron. You are the only person I’ll have unsafe sex with.”

“Sex with you is never safe,” I said, meaning it in the emotional sense.

He knew what I meant. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to hurt you. You have to trust me, though.”

“I trust you to have sex with other people when it’s convenient for you,” I said, and it came out sounding pretty bitter. So bitter I felt I had to apologize for it. “I’m sorry I can’t seem to accept that.”

He forced out a breath. “Daron. This is probably the wrong moment to tell you this. But having waited too long to tell you some things I don’t want to wait any more.”

“Any more for what?”

“You wouldn’t have to put up with me having sex with anyone else, ever, if we could just make a commitment to each other. I don’t know if we’re ready for that, though—I mean, I don’t want to pressure you, but, can you see what I’m trying to say here?”

My brain was foggy but hope was flopping around in my skull like a fish out of water. “You’re saying…if we could figure out a way to…be together…we could be monogamous?”

“That’s my proposal, yes,” he said, nodding seriously. Then his eyes widened and so did mine, because the word “proposal” was ringing in our ears.

The adrenaline rush from that was still throbbing when the phone rang. Ziggy growled and went and answered it, then made contrite noises, then came back to the bed.

“That was Barrett,” he said. “Just making sure we hadn’t killed each other.”

“Ha,” I said weakly.

“But seriously, Daron, think about it. We might not be at a point when we could sustain monogamy. If we’re going to be apart for months at a time, lack of sex would drive us both certifiably insane and you know it.”

“Hm,” I said. “You’re probably right. I just… I don’t know how to deal with this.”

“Yes, together.” I pulled him hard against me, rolled him under me and probably partly crushed his rib cage with a bear hug. “I haven’t figured it out. Maybe I’ll never figure it out. But just, shut up and be here with me today.” That was as eloquently as I could express myself.

We didn’t get into the shower right away, actually. Not for a while yet. We had some more utterly emotionally unsafe sex first.

—(Guys, no bonus scene after this one: it’s too raw and I’m too wrung out to be coherent about it. But you can still get the one that comes before this chapter, bonus scene #10, by making a paypal donation or joining the Patreon. -daron)
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Comments 3

s wrote:

My brain has settled enough to try to type coherently (I think)…First, I don’t get bent out of shape about birth control failures (if that’s what happened). Life taught me that lesson in college and has given reminders via family and friends. There are much worse things that can happen. Ziggy’s doing the right thing there.

I’m more upset Ziggy actually had a relationship with her. I don’t really care what the reason was. Sex is one thing, but a relationship is quite another. He should have talked to Daron and he knows that. I also can’t believe he called Daron from her phone. Bonehead move there…

I knew Ziggy wanted more from Daron but this hasn’t sunk in yet…Maybe later. Wow.

I’m glad nothing got broken ; )

This was worth every penny and then some! You weren’t joking when you said Daron was back with a vengeance, Ctan! Great start to September! Thanks!

Daron is definitely back with a vengeance. Here I am trying to rewrite a completely different book and he’s nagging me to write another chapter of him. “But what about this? And I told him that, remember. And don’t forget this other thing.” Yes, dear…!

Ziggy called Daron from his brother’s phone, not Janessa’s. That was in one of this past summer’s fan contributions.

“You are the only person I’ll have unsafe sex with.” This means future tense (not saying anything at all about what he’s done in the past, including Janessa) or it means the indefinite past present future that seems to be exclusive to classical Spanish, meaning not recently, not now, not in the immediate future. It can also mean “the only person with whom I am willing to have.” Which still says nothing about the past, which is put to a lie by his refusal to use a condom with Carynne.

When the music thing stops Ziggy should get a job as a political speech writer.

I wonder if he even has to think about all the possible ways whatever he says can be interpreted, or if his words just roll off his tongue that way. Does he choose vague words purposefully, or is it just that the words he chooses and the way he acts makes us think that there are numerous interpretations? Does he actually think he’s being straightforward and doesn’t realize that he’s not?

I’ve known people like that who say something and get really pissy when what they said is misinterpreted. “I just told you what I want.” “Ok, but I don’t understand what you want.” Frustration all around.

I think he’s just trained himself to talk like that. I have to think that or I will constantly be thinking he’s trying to weasel out or pull the wool over my eyes *on purpose*. Somehow thinking he can’t help himself makes me less likely to get upset. I still have to call him on it sometimes, though.

That’s what I mean. I think you *should* call him on it, because maybe he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. Maybe he thinks he’s being completely honest and straightforward and doesn’t realize he’s not unless you point it out to him and make him think differently. Or maybe I’m just making excuses for him and should stop doing that…

That’s the thing. It’s not the sex per se. It’s how he always ends up emotionally entangled. He says he wasn’t in love with her. Supposedly he wasn’t in love with Jennifer Carstens either but he still disappeared to India with her for half a year.

And then he left her somewhere in an ashram ten days later. Why don’t you believe him when he says he wasn’t in love with them? Because you still don’t believe he is in love with you and the only way you’ll believe it is if he is in love with everyone he fucks?

I don’t know about the leaving her in an ashram thing, though. All I know is that it definitely appears from experience that he’ll fucking leave everything, me included, if the right woman snaps her fingers. And I don’t believe him because it feels like he’s lying when he says it. Maybe that’s me misreading him, but that’s all I’ve got to go on.

BUT…he came to America for you (well, his mom’s death, too, but you were a big part of it). AND he chose you over baby-momma. Maybe he’s finally had his ‘don’t know what you got til it’s (almost) gone’ moment.

He didn’t come back from India for me–or if he did, I don’t know about it. Looks to me like he came back from India to pick up a successful entertainment business career where he’d left off. I’m the one who had to sneak into his hotel to reconnect with him, remember?

I’d think if he came back from India for me, he’d at least have called? Written? I get that I was out of the country, but nothing, no answering machine message, no email, no message with Carynne asking how to get in touch with me, nothing.

I said you were PART of the reason. Then his momma died and I imagine that put a lot of things on hold. The guy has been through a lot and you weren’t there for most of it. That’s NOT a criticism, btw. You had a lot of outside help derailing things with Ziggy in the form of your dear ole dad and that POS, Mills. He was hurt and angry and probably felt abandoned, but he loved you and he knew it was time to come home and face you, but then his momma died…

She actually died while he was gone. She was already in the ground by the time he got back. I know that gnaws at him, that he wasn’t there for her, that she didn’t even know where he was. Any guilt trip I lay on him about abandoning me I know doesn’t compare to that.

s Reply:September 9th, 2015 at 12:14 pm

Oh I know when she died. I had the benefit of reading Ziggy’s diary. All I’m saying is don’t jump to conclusions and talk to him. I feel like a broken record sometimes.

He didn’t contact you because he knew that you had avoided visiting him in BF. He knew that you had taken a vacation to Mexico, then played house, with Jonathan. He knew that you had whored yourself out to many bands. He knew that you were completely at fault for the BNC mess.

He knew all of that from an unimpeachable source: Digger.

sanders Reply:September 8th, 2015 at 3:19 pm

Remember I do adore you, Daron, but it’s time to come to Jesus in Southern parlance.

You know, it almost sounds like you have more of an issue with the fact that he’s screwing women than being emotional about it.

It’s kind of fucked up that you’re bugged that he’d have sex with someone and have emotions about it–comes across like you’d rather he have emotionless physical contact and just straight up use people to get off. Kind of like you do.

Whether he loves anyone else has nothing to do with whether he loves you. Having a problem with Jennifer is pretty hypocritical in general, and having one with the idea he might have cared about her? You were living with Jonathan, playing happy boyfriends then fucking some random dude in Spain while living with him.

How big is that glass house you’re living in while you’re pretending you’ve got some moral high ground and never hurt Ziggy by flaunting a declared boyfriend in front of him and refused to communicate anything about wanting a relationship with him?

I’m not saying Ziggy’s hasn’t done you wrong, because he has, but there’s a whole Grand Canyon’s worth of shit he’s not calling you on here that you might want to remember.

And I’m not saying I have the moral high ground (??) or that I’m even trying to make things “fair” between us. All I’m saying is I’m freaked out and I’m going to him to talk about it instead of running away.

It’s in the way you have a litany of things Ziggy’s done wrong to make you insecure and you never ask what you’ve done to fuck him up. You tell us about him like he just came that way, without asking him if and how you contributed, and you very much did. He does a lot of apologizing to you almost every time we see him. You don’t apologize to him. It doesn’t even seem to cross your mind to really ask how he’s doing, whether there are things for you to make up to him in the same vein of things you’re waiting for him to make amends over.

I’m not waiting for him to make amends over anything. I’m not expecting that or asking for it–I’m just trying to find a way I can be something to him and he can be something to me without us killing each other. And maybe it’s not in this chapter but there are in fact a couple of apologies from me all throughout this visit in Los Angeles that all boil down to me being apologizing for being a shitty relationship partner, unfair, hung up, etc.

Oh absolutely. I’m certain my failure to be a reasonable human being has driven him to insane lengths. That’s what Digger said, right? I made him crack. I know Digger said it to be an asshole but he was kind of right.

s Reply:September 8th, 2015 at 10:01 pm

Great points. Except I have to disagree on one, and it’s purely on a personal level. IF I were the type of person that could handle a relationship where both parties had sex with other people (which I’m not) then I think I could deal better with him having meaningless sex without emotional attachment. The relationship Ziggy had with Janessa would bother me, a lot. Honestly, it would probably be a deal-breaker for me. But those two have already shredded every single one of the few relationship rules I have for my personal life anyway. Thank god I’m not Daron because I don’t want him to walk away! I just don’t think I could deal with it.

If it came down to one of them having an emotional connection with someone else, then Ziggy really would have every right to walk away first and not come back. Daron would just look like a hypocrite over it.

Personally, I don’t get why we’re threatened or supposed to be threatened by our partners having emotional ties to other people. We don’t bat an eye at them having close friends, but the idea of combining that set of emotions with sex becomes a problem. I don’t understand the inherent either/or, or treating having both as a finite resource, that we can only have that in one single relationship at a time. Daron doesn’t lose anything if Ziggy cares about someone else, the same way Ziggy doesn’t lose anything if Daron does. The way they feel for each other, that’s a single quantity of its own that’s not subtracted from because there’s someone/anyone else.

I’ve a book to bring you the next time we brunch that goes into some great discussion of how we (society) frame monogamy and polyamory, and all kinds of things in between.

You just said it. Our societal influences tell us it’s “wrong” to love/have sex with multiple people. I’m not saying that’s right or even in line with human nature. But it’s hard to move past that thinking when, for example, your parents divorced because daddy cheated on mommy.

As for our boys, I do see a difference in what Daron did vs what Ziggy did. They had already split up (read: nearly killed each other) when Daron started with J. But they had decided to kinda sorta be in a pathetic excuse of a relationship and instead of telling Daron it wasn’t working for him, he just starts another one. Now, we ALL KNOW that Ziggy doesn’t do “alone” (except in India apparently) and Daron definitely left him alone, so in some ways that’s on him. But still, it just doesn’t sit right with me. It’s all about knowing your limits. That’s mine. As I said, thank god it’s not Daron’s or we’d be in for another 200 chapters of angst-fest hell. Lol

I’ve been thinking we need to get together again soon. September has given us so much Daron to talk about! And I would love to read that book. I have a pretty open mind, perhaps it will sway me…

A lot of that societal drive, at least in our generation, came out of the monogamy and abstinence lessons in the wake of the AIDS epidemic, which I find an interesting turn after the relative sexual freedom of the sixties and seventies.

Some of it, for me, is digging down to figure out what “cheating” really means. Sexual infidelity? Emotional? What do we lose or gain when our partners are involved with someone else? Why do we expect to be the “one and only” and what does that even mean? We don’t expect/aren’t expected to only ever have one friend with whom we connect deeply on an emotional and intellectual level– we’re taught to cultivate several or many, and in many respects, the way we love our closest friends isn’t different from how we love our lovers.

In Daron’s case, he started up with Jonathan while still screwing with Ziggy, and when things came to a head in New York, it was with Jonathan hanging around when Ziggy and Daron were getting really emotionally close after the explosion on tour. There was even that discussion with Jonathan about them being together when Jonathan was around because he knew D was with Ziggy other times. There wasn’t, iirc, the same kind of conversation with Ziggy to set out where they stood, just the two of them getting steadily closer until Ziggy took the dive off the speaker rig.

I still need to give your fic a fresh read, so let me do that tonight, and we can work on finding a good day.

s Reply:September 9th, 2015 at 4:46 pm

Oh believe me, I remember ALL of the Jonathon stuff (she says scathingly. You know I don’t like him). He was part of the epic blowout fight in NOLA. Ziggy didn’t believe Daron hadn’t messed around with him yet, but D and Z weren’t together. They weren’t together when they were getting closer on the end of that tour either, because Daron wasn’t ready.

Now? They both said they wanted to try to make it work. Ziggy asked for boundaries, which he didn’t get. He gave him a personal pager number, which he rarely used. That’s on Daron. They both agreed to fuck whoever they wanted as long as they were safe. I just think Ziggy should have talked to him about starting up this relationship with Janessa first. But that’s the flaw with these two, right? They never tell each other what they are thinking or wanting or whatever. After everything that’s happened, neither feels secure in their relationship so they just do more shit to wreck it. That being said, Daron did use the word ‘trust’ and even said if he was going to trust Ziggy he was going to do it completely. That means something different to everyone too. Wonder what it means to him…to Ziggy.

No rush on the fic. But I think the ending REALLY needs some help…it just doesn’t sound right to me. And of course NOW it’s gonna have to be set awhile ago. Lol.

Btw I love sociology and psychology. These discussions are as much fun as reading the story!

Physical infidelity I could forgive. I had to separate from my wife of 43 years when I learned she had been emotionally unfaithful to me for almost half a century. She was in a deep love affair with someone who looked like me, who spoke and walked like me, who had my mannerisms, but was not me. It was a projection of herself, and she was deeply in love.

She had emotionally abused me for decades, and a couple of times physically abused me, because I wouldn’t act like the person she loved. She could love me if I became someone else. I tried, and the cognitive dissonance tore me to shreds.

If Ziggy wants to have sex with women or with other men, then that’s something with which I think Daron needs to deal. If Ziggy wants to be emotionally entangled with someone else, that’s something with which Daron does not neeed to deal. Ziggy does, and it involves very difficult choices for him.

What Daron had with Jonathan needs to be viewed in light of the “when you’re with me, be with only me” agreement. Jonathan broke the spirit of that agreement when he tried to maneuver Daron into being always with Jonathan. That means he is always AND ONLY with Jonathan. Daron never agreed to that, and he tried to push back without hurting Jonathan’s feelings. If one insists that Daron’s compassion for Jonathan is wrongdoing, I disagree. Daron agreed to surface emotional attachment and when they are apart they are apart. Jonathan turned that into deep one-way emotional attachment and not allowing the “apart” part to occur. And then tried to blackmail Daron into that relationship.

Relationships based on blackmail or other force are both toxic and doomed.

We are in complete agreement about Daron and Ziggy. They both agreed to have sex whenever they felt like it so happy hunting. It’s the emotional relationship that is bugging me, too. I actually felt ill when I first read it and still kind of do now, too. I hate it. I’m glad it’s over but I still think about it from time to time and feel sick. Ugh.

As far as Daron’s relationship with Jonathan goes, I sincerely hope I did not give the impression I was defending it or enjoyed anything about it. In the beginning when they were just fooling around I thought he was good for Daron. He taught him a lot of positive things he needed to learn and wasn’t going to learn in a relationship with Ziggy. But as soon as Daron and Ziggy started getting close at the end of the tour and Daron was so obviously in love with him, I was ready for J to get lost. I screamed in frustration when Daron agreed to live with him. I know he was hurting and lost about what else to do but…no. Not that. I feel like J took advantage of the situation and I just wanted someone to get Daron out of there. So yeah, I don’t like J.

Jonathan was important to Daron’s growth and evolution. I do not question his motivation, merely his assumptions that Daron wanted exactly what he wanted. For that matter, Daron has been making similar assumptions about Ziggy.

Physical infidelity is not OK, but it’s the easiest form with which to deal for me. What I usually call intellectual infidelity, but Daron would call musical infidelity, is infinitely worse. And emotional infidelity is simply unforgiveable.

I expect to learn in Chapter 3,719 that Ziggy has established a close emotional relationship with Carynne’s granddaughter.

s Reply:January 15th, 2016 at 3:21 pm

I don’t mean J maliciously took advantage of Daron, just that he took advantage of the situation. He wanted Daron to live like happy boyfriends with him, and knew how weak and hurt he was about Ziggy. Daron obviously didn’t want to go home so he offered him an alternative, that was not a good idea for Daron in his mindset at the time. I hadn’t really thought about Daron making assumptions about Ziggy…will have to chew on that for a bit. I think Daron to some extent has to make assumptions because Ziggy’s not always forthcoming with what he wants, though he’s getting better at that.

For me personally, in my own relationship, I agree with you about physical infidelity, too. I told my husband when we first started dating that if he wanted to keep me, he better keep his dick in his pants. I can’t honestly say what I would do if I found out he didn’t do that. I don’t know if I could forgive it or not.

But this is literally the only relationship thing that Daron and Ziggy have talked about, and both agreed that it was ok to sleep around. I don’t know if that’s how they actually feel or not, and it seems that where we are in our current chapter that may be changing anyhow. (I won’t say more because I don’t want to spoil anything for new readers)

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the idea of this story going to chapter 3719…Ziggy and Carynne’s granddaughter, though…shm. You’re probably right. lol

“I said you were PART of the reason.” You’re right. Daron was part of the reason. Ziggy never does anything because (insert singular motivation). Ziggy came back from India because (list is too long). Ziggy had a relationship with Janessa because (list is too long). Ziggy has sex with Daron because (list is too long). Ziggy was complicit in breaking up MD3 because (list is too long).

I know that an author is supposed to have a rock solid understanding of her characters’ motivation(s). I’m not sure ctan didn’t create Ziggy after reading DSM IV 301.70.

“Okay so…she’s the one who wanted it, and you felt obliged to provide because she did you a favor?”

Echos of the discussion in which Daron was advised that Ziggy is trading sex with Daron for Daron’s music. Why shouldn’t we believe that for Ziggy sex is a transaction and he’s comfortable on either side of the table.